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Monday, June 24, 2013

K-Town Festival 2013, Copenhagen Suicide City

K-TOWN
REASSERTS ITSELF AS EUROPES PREMIER HARDCORE PUNK FESTIVAL

Ruidosa Inmundicia - Hardcore Punk still alive and well in Europe

The hardcore
punk festival ‘K-Town’, held in the ‘Death Machine’ Youth House of Copenhagen,
has once again demonstrated why it is the place to be when it comes down to the
European hardcore punk community.

The Death Machine - View of the new house from the roof garden

There was a
strong focus on Northern European bands being higher up on the bill than their
counterparts: FY FAN, HARDA TIDER, THE WAR GOES ON, and NIGHT FEVER, were all
representing Scandinavia during the latter end of the schedules. This is more
an observation, yet quite seemingly gives a nod to the consistently high
quality of hardcore punk that seamlessly comes out of the region. Interestingly
enough, there was only one UK band playing this year, which was DRY HEAVES from
Yorkshire – again, an embodiment of a region that has produced a string of good
quality hardcore punk bands in recent times. Yet of course, punk is not about
competition, it’s about co-operation, I’ve only written it that way to
suckyou in they way all the
mainstream media does.

Dry Heaves - Are we suppin' pal?

What the
spirit of the Copenhagen underground movement has managed to do is create an
environment in their new home, which encapsulates a healthy mix of political
correctness where everyone respects each others differences and everyone is on
their best behaviour following simple rules, such as no racism, no homo/trans
phobia, no heterosexism , and no hard drugs; combined with a autonomous freedom
to act out your desires in a non-judgmental environment whilst being able to
get drunk and laugh at the trivialities of a world run by a minority drunk on
power. It’s politics, pleasure, and punk all in one.

Fy Fan - A raging force of sexy results

Collectivism
is a central theme of the house and the festival. It is all run and operated by
volunteers, and activists can get in for free, have a meal, and some drinks, in
return for working a shift. Entrance tickets, alcohol, and food prices are kept
to a cost-covering / minor surplus for ongoing activism minimum, in order that
nobody is excluded for their social position.

Whilst some
may cast a glance to the past and fondly remember a time when the group used to
occupy a different building that they were violently evicted from by the state.
Many now look at the present and the future, and see all the positives that
remains. The place may be different yet the rhetoric is the same – the idea and
belief has proven to be indestructible from all forms of state propaganda, and
this weekends celebratory festival felt like a living embodiment of these
ideals, with the fast, loud and raw hardcore punk sounds providing the perfect
heartbeat to our fighting spirit.

What was
most heart-warming, was seeing people again that had previously been charged
and sent to prison for these beliefs (some in direct conflict from the incident
involving the previous house), not just for the fact that they had been
released from the cage, but the fact that they hadn’t changed those beliefs –
they were still there – probably angrier than ever – on stage, playing songs
with the same venom and rage as they did as youths, having refused to
subordinate themselves to the prison conditioning of the repressive state
apparatus. You can lock up a protestor, yet you can never kill the protest.

The War Goes On - K-Town style

The K-Town
festival first started in 2001 at the old youth house. In 2007-08 it moved to
the Gra Hall in Christiania whilst it was homeless. In 2009-10 there were no
festival as many of the activists needed to take a break and recharge their
batteries. In 2011 the festival started up again, and the weekend just gone has
been the 11th time it has happened.

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